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Friday, 6 March 2009

As I was looking out for some yarn to start Ysolda's Ishbel patterns, I realised I might be kind of in a bluey/green phase. I was trying to find either enough of the same yarn or enough of the same colour for both the beret and the scarf and suddenly my table was a sea of greens. With my Vivian aran yarn still out, there definitely seems to be something going on. My original intention had been to frog the evangeline mitts and knit the beret with the plum coloured merino as I know I have some laceweight silk dyed in the same colour. Maybe I'll save it when I do a second one - you know I never manage just to do one of anything! (okay, except the second sock, glove....)

The ball is my dyed merino from a while back and although it is DK, I remember thinking this should be knitted down a needle size so would do for 4ply. But there isn't enough for both the beret and the scarf. So I rummaged some more and found this lambswool hank dyed at the same time but much finer in weight. It's a slightly darker space dyed mix and I think would work well in the scarf. Both are from the same dye batch so to speak so they are close enough for a pairing.

I also treated myself to a set of bamboo circulars in both 50cm and 100cm. They range in size from 2.0mm - 10mm so I should be able to knit any pattern now.

Thank you to Karen for reminding me this shop existed. I got a full set of dpn's there last year but had somehow forgotten about them. The one problem I did have was not having a certain size of circular to do the job and either ditching the pattern for another day or struggling on with a too long needle - not a happy knitting experience. So now I should be totally sorted.

But the Ishbel beret pattern is OUT! I have loved the look of this since the preview on Ysolda's blog and now, at last, we can knit our own. So, now I must catch up on some sleep and get ready for a Ishbel beret knitting session tomorrow. Night night......

I was wondering what the laceweight would look like finished. I'd love to see your final beret! I haven't started properly yet mainly as I have the flu again but also because I wasn't sure that my finer 2 ply would be too small a gauge for the beret. What kind of gauge were you getting - was it close to Ysoldas? This would really be helpful for me before I knit any further!